First published online January 25, 2006
Development 133, 405e (2006)
© The Company of Biologists Limited
Charleston partners needed for shaping cells
The first morphogenetic process of Drosophila development is the
formation of the primary epithelium by cellularisation, during which
invagination of the plasma membrane packages the nuclei into around 6000
distinct cells. Using microarrays, RNAi and time-lapse phenotyping, Lecuit and
colleagues have identified several novel genes that profoundly affect cellular
architecture during cellularisation. Their paper on
p. 711 focuses on one
of these genes - charleston (char). They show that
epithelial nuclei lacking Char (owing to mutation or RNAi) fail to elongate
during cellularisation and instead remain spherical, which distorts cell shape
and the normal columnar morphology of the epithelium. Unexpectedly, the
binding of microtubules to the nuclear envelope is unaffected in char
RNAi embryos. Instead, Char's localisation to the inner nuclear membrane
indicates that it directly controls the structural organisation of the nuclear
envelope. The authors suggest that Char is a component of a nucleoskeleton
needed by the nuclear membrane to respond to microtubules; whether this is
true will become clear as its molecular partners are identified.
Related articles in Development:
- Developmental control of nuclear morphogenesis and anchoring by charleston, identified in a functional genomic screen of Drosophila cellularisation
- Fanny Pilot, Jean-Marc Philippe, Céline Lemmers, Jean-Paul Chauvin, and Thomas Lecuit
Development 2006 133: 711-723.
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
